Try Again
by Dartz-IRL
Summary: One Coyote. One Roadrunner. A car. An iPhone. A jet. A parachute. A black hole. An oven. A Large Hadron Collider. A glider. A boulder. Not necessarily in that order. One shot.


Try Again...

A coyote and roadrunner one-shot, originally for TFF's 'Iron fic' challenge. Done in about an hour.

**I...I**

Plan A:

The Coyote (Canis Stolidus) stood at the roadside. Hundreds of feet above him, was a boulder, attached to hundreds of feet of cable, the other end of which was held in the coyotes paw. In front of the coyote was a lever, a red X on the high end, and rock as the fulcrum, and a preheated gas oven at the far end.

A red X was marked in the road. The intent should be obvious.

"Meep , Meep"

With a whoosh, the roadrunner (Velocitatis Extremis) approached, gaining speed. A dust-cloud trailed for miles behind him.

Seeing his quarry, the coyote smiled. Timing to perfection, he pulled the rope. Physics took over. The boulder fell, gathering speed.. making an ominous whistling sound as it did so. It hit the lever spot on, transferring momentum and energy through the beam to the oven, launching the oven high into the air on a carefully calculated ballistic trajectory.

Up it went, higher than the boulder had fallen from… for it was lighter and momentum must be conserved in an otherwise closed system. At the apex of its flight, it hung in the air until gravity noticed it was supposed to fall.

Down it went…

The roadrunner was oblivious to this, or so it seemed. The coyote's timing proved to be correct. The oven hit the ground at the exact instant the roadrunner was standing on the red X.

However, his aim had been a little off.

Caught by the wind, blown by fickle fate, the oven had arced slightly, and fallen straight back on the lever. Physics did its inevitable thing. The oven came down, the boulder went up. The roadrunner kept on running.

Knowing what normally happened when boulders went up, the Coyote resigned himself to his fate and waited for it to come back down. Running never did make a difference.

He waited.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

Then went home.

For some reason, the boulder had decided it liked being up in the sky, and Wile E. wasn't one to look that gift horse in the mouth.

New plan time.

I…I

Plan B

Lupine, but suffering from the indignity of not being a wolf; cunning, but not a fox; the coyote awaited his quarry. Crouching low beside the road, somewhere in the deserts of the western United States, he listened.

His plan was simple.

No gadgets. Acme reliability had gone to pot since its manufacturing division had been outsourced to Indiana.

No traps. He who diggeth the pit, fall therein. He who hoisteth the boulder, beware of the shadow. And other biblical baloney.

He planned to step in front. Stop that dreaded bird. Then while the bird was too busy trying to figure out what the trap was, he'd just pounce on the darned thing and chow down. The trap, was the absence of a trap.

The coyote snarled.

Brilliant.

For some reason, he thought of a roast turkey. The mind boggled how a desert dog would have any idea what a moist roast turkey would taste like.

And so he listened.

And listened.

Listened a bit more.

He Checked his watch, tapping his paw on ground anxiously.

Listened for another thirty seconds.

Considered catching pigeons instead, before remembering that that was HB instead of WB. Of course this was just a paper attempt, and is neither…

Stoically, he listened.

"Meep, Meep"

Ahah!

That distinct sound. That whooshing jet-roar. What else could it be? Tasting sweet bird-flesh in his mouth, he leapt fearlessly into the path onrushing roar. Eyes closed… this was not a particularly bright coyote… he pictured the roast bird, steaming on a platter. How he would cook it, nobody knew.

Opening his eyes, he was met not by a bird, but by a human word.

"Plymouth"

It had four glittering eyes, and a shimmering chrome mouth. It had "426-Hemi" printed in proud white letters on its bonnet.

The coyote caught _a_ roadrunner. He caught it in the face at seventy miles an hour. Unfortunately for the poor thing, it was the wrong kind of roadrunner entirely.

The last sound he heard was a distant thud.

Then deathly darkness.

But not for long…..

A long legged, blue-feathered bird stood over the unconscious coyote, inspecting it with uncomprehending curiosity. It opened its bill…

"Meep Meep,"

Why?

I…I

Plan C:

Really a reiteration of Plan B.

The coyote concluded the plan was sound… merely his execution had failed. If at first you don't succeed, try try try try again. Try a bit more… then maybe try something else…

So he listened.

"Meep Meep"

Aha!... but he would not be fooled again. He didn't even need to check to be sure, he just waited for the car to pass into the distance.

Strange.

A thought occurred to him.

What if that had been the bird?

It wouldn't hurt to check, would it? Fateful words.

He poked his long ears above the ditch, followed quickly by his beady, savage eyes. A pall of dust hung in the air, tracing the path of _something_ fast. Stepping up onto the black-top, he searched for the object that had gone past. Whipping out a set of binoculars, he tracked it into the far distance, past some red sandstone mesa.

The Bird!

The coyote swore. How stupid of him… Next time, he promised himself in apoplectic rage, next time he'd bring a…

He didn't se the truck coming up fast behind him until _after_ it had run him over.

The roadrunner, ran on.

I…I

Plan C.

The real one this time.

ACME had an online store. Unfortunately for the coyote, he couldn't get approved for a credit card. Paypal had stopped his account… due to a number of suspicious transactions in Las Vegas. However, There was a Russian who knew a Lithuanian who knew SQL who had liked the original cartoons so much he was willing to help. A quick SQL injection, some mucking around in the backend, some secrets sold to the communists (What communists?) and the coyote was the proud owner of:

A parachute.

A paraglider.

An iPhone.

An oven.

A Not-So Large Hadron Collider(The battery powered Travel Model)

And a plate of KFC. Because he was hungry, and catching dinner on an empty stomach sucked.

He spent a few minutes, loading the iPhone with the app's he needed. Catching speeding California wildfowl.. there's an App for that!

Intrepidly, he set his plan in motion. Prepping the NSLHC on the top of a Mesa, he aimed it for the roadway, two miles away. He strapped the paraglider to his back...ACME logo prominent across the wings. Loaded up iCollide on his iPhone. Then waited.

Ninety percent waiting, this predator gig. Ten percent starving. Why? He wondered.

On the horizon, passing between two mesas a dust cloud rose into the sky. The coyote liked his lips. KFC was nice… KFRR would be better.

He smirked. And targeted his atom smasher.

It fired with nothing more than a gentle whirr. A mile away, a black hole appeared in the road. A singularity of infinite smallness and density hoovering up all matter that came within its event horizon. It never occurred to him that a point where the known laws of physics broke down might not be very appetising. All he knew was that a black hole was inescapable and therefore made the perfect trap.

The roadrunner bulleted towards the black hole.

Closer…

Closer….

Not wanting to wait for it to be trapped for certain, the Coyote launched himself into the air, hanging from the bottom of the glider. He didn't exactly know how to fly the thing, but even as he plummeted earthward, he wasn't worried.

He had an iPhone, and there was an app for it.

Selecting iFly from the home screen, he swooped down on the road, aiming dead at the roadrunner, aiming straight for his black hole.

Which had strangely disappeared.

Where did it go?

Of course! Stupid iPhone can't multitask. It was the Hadron Collider, or the paraglider, not both. Stupid iCrud. Making a note to buy an Android next time, he decided it would be better to keep flying rather than getting his linear accelerator back up working.

Falling back to his old stalwart plan, he swooped low over the barrelling blue bird, trying to grab it as he went past.

Missed!

Nothing new. Pulling the glider up hard, he traded speed for altitude, before kicking the glider hard over into an Immelman turn (The original Great War move, not the aerobatic one). Accelerating under the influence of gravity once more, he aimed for the speeding bird. Gaining fast, he reached down, ready to scoop the bird up.

Steady…. Steady…

Now!

He caught nothing but air.

Darn it! He looked back, to see the bird pecking at the road surface… at some seed he'd left there the day before. The coyote swore.

He never saw the two pillars in front of him. The gap between them was wide enough for he himself to pass through. With a push from his own momentum he made it easily. However, the gap was not wide enough for the wings of his glider. With a crunch, they decided to stay behind, smashed across the rockface.

The coyote carried on cradled by inertia, unsure if he should fall or not. Beneath him, the road rushed by like a belt sander, promising a painful, skidding landing.

Then it curved away, having reached a canyon ledge.

He shot out over the ledge, hanging in mid air above a one mile drop. Oh how very cliché, he thought, before pulling the ripcord on his parachute. It worked perfectly. The coyote hung safely in the air, guiding himself slowly down.

A little to the left… to the right.

He was a smart coyote who'd learned his lessons.

Unfortunately, by chance the Air Force was conducting low altitude exercises in the area. The coyote remained oblivious to the fact until a gust of wind caught him… caressed him… and spun him to face the gaping black maw of a silver jet fighter.

Thud, went the Thunderchief, engine snarled by the parachute.

Splat, went the annoyed Coyote, following it down.

"Meep, Meep" went the roadrunner, satisfied with it meal.

Thus, well fed, the roadrunner ran on.

I…I

Plan D

D for Dynamite?

No.

D for Deoxymethylexacyanoacrylate… ACME SuperGlue. Sticks anything to anything (Except rubber and water). Sensibly, the Coyote was wearing a rubber suit. He slathered the glue across the road surface, covering about 5 yards of tarmac with a black, sticky morass.

Trucks and cars could pass unimpeded.

But the bird… the bird would stick.

The bird would be helpless.

The bird would be cooked, stuffed and delicious.

D for delicious?

He had the table set, silver dinnerwear ready for use. Napkins waited for juices.

" Meep Meep."

The rising roar in the distance made the coyotes mouth water. Just wait, he soothed… wait… deep breath. Soon, I will have that bird's meat inside me. Warm, moist… maybe with a little seasoning.

The roar of the bird's passing reminded him of a jet-fighter. Chills ran up his spine.

Then, silence. No roar. Nothing but his own breathing inside the sweaty rubber suit. A wave of dust rushed over him. Peering out of the ditch, he saw the roadrunner stuck fast, trying to move it's slender legs.

The glue would yield a little, before snapping back with an irresistible elastic tug. The bird watched, trying to comprehend why it couldn't move. It would never get the chance to understand, thought the savage canine.

Leaping forward, he ran full pelt for the roadrunner… tongue drooling madly. This was it! This was it! He'd caught it! The coyote had caught the roadrunner! And this wasn't like that list time either. There it was, same side as him, stuck and staring with it's innocent eyes.

He felt a moment of pity.

Such a poor helpless creature.

But he was a predator, the bird was prey. And what did predators do best?

Get squashed by a boulder that had finally gotten bored of its stay in heaven, and decided that now would be a good time to drop. The coyote never saw it coming…

Freeing itself from the glue, the roadrunner watched a hand grasping out from under the red rock, clawing at the air for a few brief moments.

"Meep Meep," it teased.

The roadrunner ran on.

I….i

And done.


End file.
